The Concept of Renewal
by lovelylady095
Summary: After June, the daughter of Tony and Paige, finds a way to make herself appear human for a few hours, she takes advantage of the opportunity and heads into town. What she finds will change her perspective on her kind forever.


"You've got to be kidding me," the girl, no older than 15 said to the two bodies splayed on top of each other in the living room, emersed in blood.

"This is the fifth time this week! Who's going to clean this mess up?"

The girl, whose name was June, finally resolved to clean it herself as she knew that her parent's "roommates" went through enough without having to worry about cleaning.

She quickly ran into the kitchen, desperately trying not to get caught by the health teachers again - yesterday, she went in there for toast and came out three hours later with facts about the stomach that made her want to puke - and succeeded, bringing a small yellow dishtowel and a bucket of soapy water.

She was careful not to get any of the ink from her arms into the water, knowing that would just delay the unavoidable chore of cleaning up the murder scene present in the living room. She got her apron wet as she lugged the heavy bucket over to her parents' corpses.

As June stood over them, she marveled at their inhuman selves, stained with blood and ink.

Her parents were a funny duo, one constantly trying to murder the other, like a crazy, messed up game.

Her mother was slackjawed, starting up into space with her vibrant red eyes. A cut on her forehead spilled blood onto the curly pastel rainbow of colors that was her hair. The red blood on her face contrasted violently with her pale white face and dark, inky limbs. On the skirt of her dress lie pictures, one was even of June, the rest were random things that her mother found beautiful - oranges, rain, the human brain.

Her father, on the other hand, was vastly different from her mother.

He had dark blue hair with lighter yellow tips, dark blue eyes and blue skin, a strange anomaly even in concepts, with a yellow clock hand centered on his face, always giving the right time. He wore a dark black coat with a orange striped sash and two white gloves that, if removed, could rot things away with the power of time - except for concepts of course, they were immortal.

They weren't perfect at the moment, her mother had a sword that looked very much like a clock hand run through her chest and her father had multiple stab wounds from the pencils her mother kept perfectly sharpened and poisoned at all times.

It was amazing that they could stop fighting just to make me, June thought as she carefully pulled the long sword out of her mother's chest. June knew that the timer was started as soon as she removed the murder weapon from its place. She could already see the hole getting smaller.

She carefully gripped a pencil from her father's abdomen and pulled hard. It gave way with little effort and she soon had all eight of the pencils laid out in a perfect line. While June didn't consider herself a perfectionist, she was indeed her father's daughter and preferred to have things sorted.

She pulled her mother's inky hand over her shoulder and pulled her onto the couch. June felt the back of her turtleneck neckline to find it dripping with ink.

Normally, she wouldn't care as she herself was inky most of the time, but the mark showed itself very well on her blue bow that was tied round her neck.

June scowled and desperately tried to lift her father off the ground using only her gloved hands. Her father hated ink on his clothes and she didn't exactly want to anger him. She managed to sit him against the couch, away from the blood and ink that stained the wood floors.

June dipped the rag and began to scrub. Her gloved were wet and soapy now, but she didn't care. She was going to have to change anyway because of the ink on her bow.

She whirled around at the sound of the door opening. It was just Manny.

Sighing in relief, she turned back to the floor and spoke nonchalantly, as though she wasn't cleaning up blood.

"How was school?"

Manny froze on the steps, terrified of whose voice just called out for him. June and Paige sounded so similar, it was frightening.

"It's June, by the way," June's voice called out over the couch, calming his nerves, but not completely. Paige had tried that before and he ended up with a massive headache the next day from being pushed down the stairs eighty times, all in the name of "creativity."

June's dark blue locks came into his line of sight and he smiled.

"So?" She further prompted.

"Well, uh, nothing super exciting happened today, Mindy Glaswell brought her pet turtle and Jonathan Darvill set it loose. I have some homework too." He muttered, not really sure what she was looking for.

"That sounds amazing! All I got to do was pose for Mom's picture and clean up their... mess."

She paused to look down at the blood, still pooling around her knees.

"Oh, uh, cool. I'm gonna go work on that homework now, uh, bye!" He barely managed to get out the last bye out before he darted up the stairs to the puppets' room.

June slumped down and scrubbed hard at the -now dried - blood that flaked on the floorboards. She didn't entirely understand why the puppets were afraid of her. They were comfortable, at least, but it looked as though they were waiting for her to take on the same tendencies as her parents.

She looked down with satisfaction. That was as good as it was gonna get. June slowly stood up.

She could use a shower and wanted to get into some sleepwear as quickly as possible. The blood that stained her skirt was not going to come out easily.

June made her way to her room, a cozy little place with one decoration on the wall. A calendar that read June 19. Same as her apron and every other calendar in the house.

She walked past the calendar to her dresser. The dresser was quite pointless as she only wore one pair of clothes - not including the nightclothes that her mother made her - and would never need another pair. The clothes, strangely, were self-healing, meaning that they mended themselves. Stains however, they stayed. Especially when your parents think that the highlight of the day is getting to murder each other.

June made her way to the bathroom that the small family shared, nightclothes in hand. She could hear small murmurs coming from the living room which meant that Harry, Robin and Manny were downstairs or her parents were coming back. June assumed the latter.

Knowing it would be awhile before either of the concepts could attack each other again, she undressed and stepped into the shower.

Since both her and her mother - Paige - had appendages primarily made of dripping ink, showers were hard. Water in general was hard.

June felt the line where her pale white skin turned into steady following ink. It was almost like feeling a wound, something that wasn't supposed to be touched.

She admired the pale pastel streaks that coarsed through her navy blue hair and twisted a strand around her inky finger. She felt a little weak, her body was having to put out extra ink in order to keep her from falling apart. She looked at her feet, at the black water spiralling down the drain and figured that it was probably time to get out before she fainted. Again.

And she didn't intend to repeat that incident where Paige had walked in on poor June after she had spent too long in the shower. While concepts don't usually care for their children, Paige had gone ballistic, yelling at Tony and stabbing at anything that breathed near June. She wasn't allowed up for a week and even then, she was under house arrest.

June dried her hair with the towel, being as careful as possible to avoid her neck and arms. She had put on her gloves as soon as soon as she had exited the shower - not wanting to leave inky handprints everywhere - and was very delicately putting on her nightclothes.

Her mother, Paige, the concept of creativity, had created these clothes so naturally, they were a little... creative.

They covered her inky feet with colorful drawings and creeped up her legs and bodice. The pajamas ended at a red high neck to cover her neck. June scooped her hair into a ponytail and tied a big red bow around it.

She breathed out, praying that - perhaps - her parents weren't awake and wouldn't question her as soon as she walked out the door.

Alas, she heard them bickering the moment she left the safety of the bathroom.

"I still hate the drapes," she heard her father's accent drift through the house.

"Well, you just aren't thinking about it creatively! I quite like the bloody fingerprints!" Her mother's tinkling voice echoed around the house like a ghostly lullaby.

June took a deep breath and entered the room. Both of her parents' eyes drifted towards her and she wished she could disappear. Having two godlike people staring at you, almost trying to read your mind, isn't exactly amazing, even if you happened to be the combined offspring of these gods.

June sat on the couch, meeting her mother's red eyes with her own.

"Uh, what's on TV?" June said, trying to start conversation.

The two other concepts in the room looked at each other, despite being natural enemies, and tried to beg the other to speak.

"Oh, darling! Did you..." Paige trailed off momentarily, "clean this up for us?"

June looked down and nodded.

"Oh, um, amazing!" Her father desperately added.

June pursed her lips.

"June, dear, do you have time to help me with my poisons tomorrow? I am absolutely dying to show you deadly nightshade and it's effects on humans." Paige blurted out with a wide grin on her face.

Tony snickered, pleased that she had used the word "time" in her sentence.

She whirled at the sound and hissed, "Don't think I won't hesitate to rip your eyes out. It's still my turn."

June sat and watched the scene in front of her. Tony's hand was already in his sword that he had retrieved and Paige was stroking her pencils in her pocket.

"No, no no no. We're not doing this twice today!" June yelled at both of them.

They loosened their grip, but neither one let go.

She slumped back against the chair and sighed.

"Why can't we just be a normal family," she scoffed under her breath.

Paige's eyes widened and she turned to look at Tony, who was busy checking the clock on the desk for breakage. She shoved him to get his attention.

He briskly placed the clock down and turned to his only daughter.

June put her head on her hands and looked up at her parents with big, bright eyes.

She was just about to say something when the door opened and in came Robin and Harry from work. Their faces quickly changed from pleased to terrified as her parents turned to look at them.

Paige sat on her knees with her arms crossed in front of her. A stealthy grin was widening on her face until she looked at Tony.

"Maybe it's time to teach a lesson."

June locked herself in her room so she wouldn't hear the screams of her friends. She blasted loud music from a boombox in the corner and proceeded to paint.

While there was nothing solid on her walls, there was hundreds and hundreds of paintings. All on top of each other, the made the room into a beautiful mangle. There was only one variation; on the far side of the wall lay a bright mural of October. This had been her mother's room before she was born and she had painted a picture of Harry, Manny and Robin in the leaves. Her mother and father - Paige and Tony - sat together in the background, watching them.

It was only added later that a little girl with navy hair and streaks of rainbow with cute red eyes was added to the playing field.

June stroked the little painting of her throwing leaves into the air. She collapsed on the bed, exhausted from the day's events. She could still hear the cracking sounds coming from the other side of the house and she tried to ignore it. She tried to ignore herself.

She was the daughter of the concept of creativity and the concept of time. She was June, concept of renewal. But she felt like a monster most of the time.

June turned her head to the side and tried to close her eyes. With the loud music and screams coming from the next room, it was impossible. She managed to do it though, she had trained herself to.

June woke up in a cold sweat, struggling to gain an understanding of where she was. Her bedroom was darker at night, the mural seemed more threatening than calming. The tiny window gave one square of light that arched across the room.

June silently - as Paige could be completely quiet while walking, so could June - tip-toed over to the door and put her ear against it. No signs of life could be heard, but that didn't mean they didn't just take a break.

As she was retying the big fluffy bow in her hair, she saw the door handle move. She franticly looked for a place to hide and settled for the closet. She shut the doors and tried to ignore the old smell of copper that proved somebody died in here. She peeked through the crack to see... Manny? She opened the door, almost making him faint until he saw her.

"Oh thank goodness you're alright," he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Why wouldn't I be?" June whispered back.

"Tony and Pa-" he started, but stopped because the doors handle was twisting again. June pointed to the closet with a finger over her mouth and shut it behind him.

The door opened and Paige stepped in with Tony trailing her closely. He obviously didn't trust her to go behind him.

"Manny! Where are you?" Her mother's sticky, sweet voice called out.

"Oh dear, it seems he has outsmarted us," her father said sarcastically, but pointing to his hiding spot. Paige shrugged and went to open the door. June's eyes widened.

"Wait! I saw he went... down the hall! Really!"

Paige's eyes narrowed.

"We're not stupid dear. We could hear you speaking to him," she narrowly pointed out and mumbled under her breath, "It seems your sneaking is getting rusty. We can't have that."

Tony pulled the door open to reveal Manny in a curled ball on the floor.

"Ah, young chap! There you are! Your friends have been looking for you," Tony called out as he drew his sword. Manny made a panicked screech then sprinted out of the closet, barely escaping without a nick.

June stared wide-eyed at the door, awaiting her parents departure.

They quickly left and June was alone again. She wished Manny would come back. He didn't.

June woke up with sleep in her eyes and messy hair. She woke up at the same time every morning because of her "internal clock" that had been passed down from Tony. Thankfully, she was allowed to wake at seven instead of five-twenty-five, when her father woke up.

She quickly got dressed and tied her big red bow around her waist. She brushed her tangled hair until it was good enough and then she traveled down the stairs.

The smell of coffee filled the kitchen by the time June walked in. Mercifully, the health teachers were still asleep and Tony was at the table, reading a newspaper. There was a pile of mail on the table and June grabbed it. She also grabbed an orange juice and two frozen waffles.

She sat on the rocking chair in the front room, during through the mail. Most of it was for the puppets, but there was some seeds from the concept of growing and some clock parts for Tony.

She put the puppets' mail on the couch opposite of her and observed the seeds her mother had received. They were bright red with little freckles of black. She put the bucket of seeds down on the table right as her mother came into the room.

"Did my seeds come? Ah, yes they did!"

She grabbed the bucket and frowned.

"These aren't what I ordered! Tony!!"

Her mother walked out to go yell at her father. June took another look at the seeds. Something told her to take some. She pocketed three and walked out of the room.

June sneaked to the other side of the house, where the other concepts lived. They rarely emerged though, she had only really gotten to know the health teachers and her parents.

She could hear Shrignold singing his love song as she passed by and he looked over to her.

"June! It's been so long! How have you been? Have you found your special one?"

June paused, looked at him slowly and replied, "Yeah, I've been good. No, I haven't found anyone."

He frowned, but then smiled.

"So, my child, what brings you to the other side of the house?"

"I'm looking for Colin. Have you seen him?"

Shrignold's face looked disgusted at the mention of Colin.

"Down the hall, dear girl. I don't know why you would ever want to see him though."

She nodded and stopped in front of the big door. She hated this part. If you wanted to speak to Colin, you had to go through the digital world.

She stepped inside the room and listened for the static. June was slowly incorporated into the code as Colin realized her presence.

"Oh June, wanna do some digital dancing. Hey, it's fun!"

June shook her head and took out the seeds.

"Can you tell me what these are?"

Colin looked hard at them.

"Eh, they could be Mitogoriois Xonfigurous, deadly plant that transforms the consumer stunningly beautiful before they die."

"Wait, humanly beautiful?"

"Yes, that is my assumption. That will turn you humanly beautiful for 24 hours. Then, you die."

That wasn't a problem. June was immortal and could come back from the dead as much as she'd like.

"Okay, um, that sounds great! Thanks," she added.

She walked out of the room, feeling her digital footprints evaporate. She got what she needed and now, she just needed to test it.

She could only assume that this death would hurt. Badly. She had died before of course, multiple accidents - her mother dropped her a lot as a baby - and even on-purpose deaths. She'd even gotten poisoned by nightlock. But she assumed that this would be a little worse.

She called out, "I'm going for a walk!" and went outside. After walking for a few minutes, she hid behind a tree and took out the seed. She closed her eyes, leaned her head back and swallowed it.

The change was almost immediate.

While she felt weaker, - as poison does make you weaker - her inky arms dripped off to reveal pale white skin. Her hair grew black, covering her rainbow streaks. She pulled out a handmirror just as her eyes changed from red to stratosphere blue. Her face gained more of a blushy color and her lips turned from black to pink.

Her clothes changed as well, sensing the poison and adapting. Her calendar dress transformed into a light blue and white dress - still with giant white bow though - and her Mary Janes turned from red to black. She looked... normal.

June wasted no time in getting a little closer to the human's town. Everyone was hustling and bustling around like chickens with their heads chopped off.

June heard a voice near her.

"Hey! Who are you?"

She whirled around and looked at whoever spoke. It was a girl with light brown hair, green eyes and a small smile. She was wearing a long green dress with black Mary Janes. Her hair was wrapped up in a green scarf and swept back into a bun.

However, living with Paige, June had no idea what color the girl's dress was. She was intrigued almost instantly. All she could ask was, "What color is your dress? It's beautiful."

"Oh, this? It's an olive green color, I got it from Wollaster's in town!" She stated confidently with a grin.

"It's really pretty..." June said while blushing.

She remembered that green was Manny's favorite color, but was not allowed in the house because it was not creative.

"Thank you! I'm Claire. What's your name?" Claire exclaimed.

"Oh, uh, I'm June."

"I like that! Are you going to school soon?"

"School?" She recognized the name from Manny but she never thought that she, a concept, would go. School was for humans. She was just there to observe.

But, she could observe closer...

"Um, yeah?"

Claire squealed and ran forward to grab June's arm. June, who was only used to physical touch when you were getting murdered, pulled away and got into a fighting stance.

Claire squeaked but didn't seem too bothered.

"Come on, we're going to be late!"

Late was something June understood. Tony could not stand to be late. Ever.

"We better go then, we might get punished."

"Punished? I don't know what they did to you at your old school, but here they just call our parents if we're late."

While June appreciated the fact that she wouldn't get a finger chopped off if she was late, she also didn't want her... dysfunctional parents getting called up.

"We better go then."

Claire smiled and finally grabbed June's arm, pulling her through the greenery.

At this point, June wasn't sure what was going to happen. Her feet stumbled along the path, creating indents in the dirt and scuffing her black shoes.

She didn't feel well, but she was excited for this new adventure. She hadn't interacted with any humans for a while.

Except the puppets, of course.

While they were human, Paige and Tony insisted on calling them puppets. They were the ones pulling the strings.

Claire had a firm grip on June's arm, and they seemed to go deeper into the forest until they reached a little building. It was cream colored, with a red roof and a sign that said Coner School.

June stared in awe as Claire continued to pull her closer. Suddenly, June stopped.

Claire tumbled to the ground as June's feet refused to move closer. It was concept magic that kept June from approaching and entering any building not assigned to her without permission from a human.

June stuttered and said, "Um, are you sure I can come in?"

Claire looked at her funny and replied, "Of course you can."

June urged her feet to move but found they couldn't.

"But can you say, 'Yes, June, you may come in?'"

She quickly added, "My mother makes everyone say that. She says it's rude to invite yourself in."

Claire stared but said nothing.

Finally, she giggled and replied, "Yes June, you may come in."

June's feet stumbled forward, almost tripping her. Thankful that her new friend didn't suspect her strange behavior - she believed - she walked inside.

It was a brisk autumn day on the outside, but inside was warm and safe. Children's voices could be heard down the halls and June began to feel happy and confident.

Until she saw Manny.

He was standing at the end of the hall with his blue backpack and smiling. He was smiling.

He was laughing and talking to his friends like not twelve hours ago he was screaming in pain.

"June? You okay?" She could hear Claire's voice but couldn't see her. "Why are you staring at Manny? Do you know him?"

June just stood wordlessly, questions in her eyes and not speaking.

She was knocked out of her stupor when Manny turned and she quickly hid behind Claire.

"Oh, do you have a crush on him?" Claire's never-ending questions were starting to get a little old.

"Uh, no. I just, um, I know him." June managed to speak in her spot behind Claire.

"Well, okay then. You should go talk to him." And before June could even protest, Claire shoved her in front of Manny.

They both fell on the ground, June on top of him, and everybody stopped to stare. She got up on her knees, apologizing desperately.

He sat up, not really looking at her.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry Manny, I didn't mean to, I just got in the way and I should've stayed back and I..."

But Manny wasn't listening.

He would know that voice from anywhere. It was either his only female friend or his worst nightmare. Paige never apologized so he assumed it was June.

But June didn't look... like a concept. She was human. How, he didn't know, but human nonetheless.

"Oh no, it's fine. I should've looked where I was going."

"Oh uh, ok."

They crawled off each other as the bell rang.

Claire grabbed June as soon as she was on her feet and dragged her to the room next door.

"I don't think Nancy is here today so you can sit in her seat."

Claire pointed at the seat beside hers.

June quickly took the seat and looked around her. There were normal kids just sitting around her, not screaming in fear, just talking.

June smiled at Manny when he walked in a few minutes later. He gave an uneasy one back. He took the other seat behind her and tapped her on the back.

She looked around her shoulder at him and showed a guilty look.

"June?"

"Uh huh?"

"Oh, it is you. How did you, uh, get like this?"

June looked down and pulled the seeds out of her pocket.

"Those turn concepts into humans?"

"No, they're poison. They can turn you beautiful until death."

"Oh, humanly beautiful."

"Exactly."

"But if they're poison, won't that mean that they're deadly?"

"Immortal, remember?"

"I know. But won't you die in class, which won't look great?"

June thought for a bit.

"I think that it won't actually kill me until tonight, so I'll be fine."

"As fine as poison can be."

"True," she said with a smile.

"What're you guys talking about?" Claire put her head in between the two.

"Uh, gardening!" June made up on the spot.

"Ugh, boring. At least we get a cool class today. They brought in a real scientist and a bunch of equipment for today's lesson!" Claire exclaimed.

"Really?" June questioned.

"Yeah, they've got a microscope, rocks, and a stethoscope!"

June thought to herself as Claire and Manny talked. She never got to do anything fun while at home. This was her opportunity to do it, to have fun, make friends, and make Manny less scared of her. Maybe she could even change her parents to be slightly less violent.

Then again, maybe not.

"Okay class. We have a guest today from a real laboratory! Please welcome Mr. Ednim!"

A bald man with a white coat and glasses walked into the classroom and bowed.

"Hello students. Today, we will learn about the human body and how it works!" June could see Manny flinch, remembering the health teacher's lessons.

She herself flinched at the thought of going through that again.

The scientist, however, was very clear and proved most things that the health teachers said wrong. He didn't sing though, that was a definite negative.

After 3 hours of actual learning, the teacher took over again.

"Now, we want you to guess what the body looks like in your favorite animals! Be as creative as you want, it's your picture."

Manny flinched again at the mention of creativity. June felt bad.

A child in the front row spoke up, asking, "Can we draw monsters if we want to?"

The teacher shrugged and said, "Sure, just make it colorful."

The child got started. So did everyone else.

June decided on a bunny. She had seen several in Shrignold's room and quite liked them.

She, being the daughter of creativity itself, did a rather fine job of diagramming the certain parts of a rabbit and took pride in her work. She looked up to see what Manny drew.

He had started a deer, but quickly became transfixed with his eraser.

Oh well, it was his grade.

She signed her name on the bottom of the page and went to turn it in. The teacher noticed her out of the corner of her eye and walked over.

"That's a very nice rabbit."

"Thank you."

"Are you one of my students?"

"I don't know. I just started today and got pulled into this class."

"What's your name?

"June."

"What's your last name?"

"I don't know."

"Who are your parents?" The teacher was starting to worry for this girl.

"Oh, uh, I don't have any."

"Don't have any? Where do you live?"

"I, uh, just moved here."

The teacher was a little confused but let her sit down. The teacher - whose name was Ms. Mefall - called the principal and let her know that she had a new student with no parents, no where to live and no last name.

The principle promised to look into it and hung up.

Ms. Mefall called all the students to order and began to hang the pictures on the board. June was looking out the window across the hill where she knew her house was.

It was only when Ms. Mefall called the classes attention that she saw it.

Besides her bunny and Manny's half finished deer, the entire class had drawn more or less the same thing. Or, two of the same thing.

About ten Paiges and nine Tonys littered the board.

"Hey, who drew that monster?" The child in the front called out, pointing at a Paige in the corner.

"I did! Did you draw the same monster as me?" A child in the back yelled.

"Yeah!"

The whole class interrupted into chaos as June heard slivers of whole conversations.

"My dad saw the ink monster when it made our sheep all black!"

"The Boogeyman was by my house last year."

"It hurt my dog."

"I almost killed it!"

"I saw it in my backyard"

"It's hideous."

But one picture stuck out to June.

A little girl with white skin, red eyes, and blue rainbow hair wearing a calendar dress. Her. A monster.

June began to walk to the board. She looked at the corner of the paper to see a scrawly written 'Claire' in the bottom right corner.

June felt the poison act before it did. Her mind stumbled with pain, raved and raced. Though she was in no danger, adrenaline raced through her veins.

Her hands shook and her knees gave out as her pale face returned. She felt her arms returning to ink and saw her hair slowly retaining it's former bright colors.

It was as though her dress melted and returned to the traditional calendar with the iconic 19 that marked the days. The clocks on her underskirt practically burned the blue dress that she formerly wore.

Her eyes were burning, changing between the blue and red until they stopped at red. Her lips turned black again as she died.

Manny had been staring in shock as his friend regained her form until she closed her eyes. He knew she was dead, her chest didn't move. The other children were also observing her, Claire was in hysterics, the teacher was calling the police and Manny didn't know what to do.

Except, he could call her parents.

That would lead to multiple punishments for even letting her approach the school - which wasn't even his fault - but he knew that if he didn't do something, she might wake up 6 feet under the ground.

He walked out of the classroom to the stationary phone in the hall. He inserted two quarters and dialed the number.

No one answered and he thought that he might be spared, but the receiver picked up and put Tony on the call.

"Hello? Whoever this is, make it quick. I don't have time for this."

"Um, it's Manny."

"Manny! What seems to be the issue?"

"June is here."

The line was silent, he could hear arguing in the background.

"Bring her to the phone."

"See, uh, she can't. She's dead right now."

Over the hill, in a little weird house, the living embodiment of time went pale. Or as pale as he could; he was dark blue after all.

"Is she in view?"

"Yes."

He coughed. His eyes narrowed with worry. He turned to his enemy, still recovering from the blow he had delivered a minute ago.

"It's June."

Paige's hands flew from her injured side to her mouth. Whatever happened to make Tony this way was enough to put aside the fight.

She put her hands down and simply said, "Let's go get her."

Manny was busy trying to convince everyone in the school to evacuate if they wanted to keep their heads. Most of the students needed no prompting and ran quickly home.

He carried June to a side table and laid her there. He would wait until Paige and Tony came before he left her. He saw the door open and - thinking it was June's parents - went to open it.

It wasn't.

The police officer drew her gun, ready for anything. Manny shielded his face and braced for impact. She paused, and pushed him aside.

"Hey, wait, no, you can't!" Manny yelled, but it was in vain.

The police officer looked at June, eyes wide open.

"What," she pointed to June, "is that thing?"

"It's not a thing! She's my friend."

The police officer was checking for a pulse.

"She's dead."

"Which is exactly what you'll be if you don't step away from our daughter." Tony said from the ajar door.

Paige clung to Tony until he gave her a nod.

The police officer backed away and hesitantly said, "Um, Coner Police Department, put your hands up?"

Manny looked at the woman like she was crazy. She shut up when she saw the look Tony gave her.

Paige walked towards June's body and caressed her cheek.

"Aw, my poor sweet girl. Who did this to you?"

She felt a drop of black ink roll down her face and onto June's apron. She held June's hand as Tony walked over.

He held June's other hand and sat down.

They were silent, all of them, until the second hour rolled around. June's eyes flickered.

She opened them wide and hoarsely whispered, "Mommy...?"

Paige smiled as June's hand touched her face.

"Yeah, it's Mom. How're you feeling?"

June groaned as Paige let out a chuckle.

"Well, my dear, we'd better get you home." Tony's voice laughed out.

"Can you stand?" Paige said.

"Yeah, gimme a second." June replied.

She gingerly tested her legs and stretched her arms. Stepping onto the ground, she gave a little twirl then looked at her parents.

"Let's go."

The three walked out, hand in hand, as the police officer and Manny stood watching.

"Mom! Let it go!" June yelled.

"I will not! I had it first!" Paige retaliated.

"Paige!" June yelled back.

The silence was almost deafening.

It had been 4 years since the incident and June was beginning to look like her parents. She could even be the same age.

But it was at that moment they realized that she was no longer their daughter. They were partners now. Two of them were in love, all of them were friends.

Concepts had never really raised children but the trio now understood that you couldn't. They may have birthed her, but that was just her creation. She may have come from them, but she wasn't theirs anymore.

June was her own person, no real parents now. Paige and Tony continued to let her live with them but it was more as friends than family.

Later, June moved.

They would remember her undoubtedly, but differently. As a friend who came and left.

June found her own true partner soon after she left. A concept of weather named was to be the one she fought with every day for the rest of eternity. And that was great.

She herself had a child, a little boy. The concept of forecasting. He too ran off, as a friend to go live the rest of his life with another concept. And that is where our story ends.


End file.
